Abstract

Contemporary conflicts in Ukraine, the Middle East, and Venezuela are increasingly interpreted through the lens of energy geopolitics, wherein the control of hydrocarbon reserves, transit routes, and market dependencies serves as both an instrument and an objective of statecraft.

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This essay synthesises empirical evidence from 2024–2026 to argue that these ostensibly disconnected crises exhibit a coherent strategic logic: the deliberate construction of an Atlantic-Levantine Energy Axis designed to consolidate U.S.-led dominance, integrate Israeli infrastructure into European supply chains, and counter the influence of rival powers, notably China and Russia.

At the heart of this architecture lies the India Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) and the Haifa-Europe pipeline network, a permanent energy bypass that circumvents the Strait of Hormuz and the Suez Canal.

The analysis draws upon trade flow data, policy documents, satellite imagery, and scholarly commentary to critically examine the proposition that the cascade of crises represents a phased grand strategy of energy control, reinforced by an assertive doctrine of hemispheric exclusion and territorial consolidation in the Levant.

Introduction

The period since February 2022 has witnessed a radical restructuring of global energy markets unprecedented in its speed and scope. The Russian invasion of Ukraine, the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, the imposition of Western sanctions, and the targeted manipulation of oil production in Venezuela and Iran have collectively redrawn the cartography of energy supply (Hameed, 2025; Monaldi, 2025).

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Half a million tons of methane rise from the sabotaged Nord Stream pipeline. Photo: Swedish Coast Guard

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President Donald Trump’s 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) explicitly designates “American energy dominance” as a central strategic priority, defining energy exports as a mechanism to “project power” and to structure the dependencies of both allies and adversaries (Szulecki, quoted in The Guardian, 2026; NSS, 2025). The 2026 update to the NSS introduces what officials have termed the “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, declaring that the Western Hemisphere and its strategic partners foremost Israel must remain free of “hostile foreign ownership” and that energy infrastructure constitutes a core security interest (U.S. Department of Energy, 2026).

This framework invites interrogation of whether the cascade of crises constitutes a deliberate, phased grand strategy, now visibly crystallising around a Haifa-centred energy hub.

Phase One: The Weaponisation of Interdependence in Europe

The first phase of the energy market redivision centred on the decoupling of Europe from Russian pipeline gas. Prior to the February 2022 invasion, Russia supplied approximately 40% of EU gas imports (Newsbase, 2025). The destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines in September 2022 an act the Kremlin attributes to the United States and the expiration of the Russia-Ukraine gas transit agreement on 1 January 2025 reduced the Russian share to under 5% (Newsbase, 2025). The Ukraine transit cessation alone removed 150 billion cubic metres per year from European supply lines (Lu Ruquan, CNPC, 2025).

Simultaneously, U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports to the European Economic Area surged by 61% in 2025 compared to 2024 and by 485% compared to 2019 (Clingendael Institute et al., 2026). U.S. LNG now accounts for 59% of EU LNG imports and 68% of UK LNG imports (Clingendael et al., 2026). As of May 2026, Russia’s share in EEA gas imports has collapsed to below 8%. This substitution has, in the assessment of a joint study by the Clingendael Institute, the Ecologic Institute, and the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, provided the United States with a “growing stranglehold” over European energy supply, raising both price vulnerabilities and geopolitical leverage (Boffey, 2026). Professor Kacper Szulecki observes that the 2025 NSS “explicitly frames energy exports as a way to project power,” a departure from earlier marketbased conceptions. The phase established a new Atlantic dependency architecture, setting the stage for a broader reordering.

Phase Two: Venezuela and the Hemispheric Dimension

The second theatre involves Venezuela, holder of the world’s largest proven crude oil reserves at approximately 303 billion barrels (Oil & Gas Journal, 2025). Following the revocation of Chevron’s operating licence in March 2025 and the imposition of secondary sanctions on tanker traffic, Venezuelan production declined from 900,000 barrels per day (bpd) in early 2025 to an estimated 650,000 bpd by December 2025 (Economy Middle East, 2025; S&P Global, 2025). In early 2026, tightened enforcement of the “blockade” has further constrained output.

Although Venezuela represents merely 1% of global supply, its heavy crude is critical for specialised U.S. Gulf Coast refineries, and its sanctions profile enables U.S. leverage over competing buyers (Kpler, 2025). China, the principal alternative destination, absorbed approximately 76% of Venezuelan exports in 2025 predominantly via opaque intermediaries supplying independent “teapot” refineries in Shandong (Times of India, 2025). The blockade therefore disproportionately affects Chinese energy security, removing a source of discounted heavy crude that is difficult to substitute (News18, 2025). Francisco Monaldi of the Baker Institute identifies Latin American hydrocarbons as a “strategic” component of Western hemispheric energy diversification, consistent with the broader logic of supply chain reconfiguration and the Trump Corollary’s emphasis on excluding hostile actors from the hemisphere (Monaldi, 2025).

Phase Three: The Iran-Israel Confrontation and the Hormuz Blockade

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz in March 2026 following the massive IranIsrael military strikes through which approximately 20–21 million bpd of crude and onefifth of global LNG trade had previously passed, constitutes what Modern Diplomacy (2026) terms “the largest energy disruption in modern history.” Gulf exports fell by over 60%, and floating storage exceeded 50 million barrels. Asian economies China, India, Japan, and South Korea absorbed the shock asymmetrically, accounting for approximately 70% of flows through the strait (Modern Diplomacy, 2026).

Image: Strait of Hormuz (Public Domain)

The confrontation and the accompanying U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities in late March 2026 exacerbated these disruptions (Al-Monitor, 2025; updated 2026). China, which relies on Iran for large volumes of heavily discounted crude, confronted what News18 (2025) described as an “energy crisis,” noting that Iranian oil is “irreplaceable” due to its unique combination of price, volume, and sanctions defiance. Wang (2025) argues that the security of BRI land corridors depends upon Iranian territorial stability; instability “induced by Tel Aviv or Washington” threatens the entire BRI architecture (Tehran Times, 2025). The blockade rendered the traditional GulftoAsia sea lane untenable for months, catalysing an urgent search for alternative  corridors.

The resulting global energy system split into two partially disconnected basins: a disrupted Eurasian system centred on the Gulf and Russia, and an increasingly indispensable Atlantic Basin anchored by U.S. production. U.S. crude exports surged to approximately 5.8 million bpd by April 2026, with record product and LPG shipments redirected to Asia to compensate for lost Middle Eastern supply (EIA, 2026). This reallocation aligns closely with the operational logic of the 2025 NSS and its 2026 update, which treat “deliverability” the capacity to move energy to market rather than reserves alone as the decisive determinant of power (Modern Diplomacy, 2026).

Phase Four: The Haifa-Europe Corridor the Strategic Centrepiece

The Hormuz blockade transformed the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) from a trade route into a permanent energy bypass, described in government circles as the “strategic centrepiece” of the new order. IMEC was endorsed at the 2023 G20 Summit and has been explicitly framed as a Western-aligned alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (Chaziza, 2025; Liang, 2025). By early 2026, internal reports and statements from Israeli energy leaders, including NewMed Energy, confirmed that the goal is a massive network of pipelines running from the Arabian Peninsula through Saudi Arabia and Jordan, terminating at the Port of Haifa (Jerusalem Post, April 2026).

The strategic rationale is unambiguous. This route allows Westernaligned energy to completely bypass both the Strait of Hormuz still rendered precarious by the IranIsrael confrontation and the Suez Canal, a perennial chokepoint. From Haifa, gas and crude oil can be injected into a web of existing and planned infrastructure: undersea pipelines such as the proposed EastMed, the “Vertical Gas Corridor” linking Greece, Bulgaria, and the Western Balkans, and eventually the broader European grid. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in an April 2026 address, declared that “rerouting pipelines westward is the only longterm solution to the Hormuz crisis” (Jerusalem Post, 2026). This corridor creates what U.S. Department of Energy documents call a “unified plug”: once the Middle Eastern pipelines are integrated into Haifa, they are designed to interface with the massive influx of U.S. LNG, regasified fuels, and crude oil. The result is a single, impenetrable energy market that tethers Europe to the U.S. Israeli security umbrella, locking out Russian gas and any Chinese-backed alternative infrastructure (U.S. DOE, 2026).

The US-Israel synergy is now institutionalised. The Haifa hub serves as the “central nervous system” of a Long-Term Strategy, enabling Washington and Jerusalem to act as energy gatekeepers. SpecialEurasia (May 2026) reports the formation of a de facto “UAE-Israel axis,” distinct from Saudi Arabia’s more ambivalent posture, which has accelerated pipeline interconnection agreements and logistics cooperation. This axis secures the southern flank of the corridor and ties the UAE’s surplus capacity into the Levantine gateway. The pipeline-to-power logic is thus straightforward: control over the corridor grants the ability to price, restrict, or condition the flow of energy to any consumer in Europe, East Africa, or South Asia, converting hydrocarbons into an instrument of systemic coercion.

Phase Five: Gaza Marine, Territorial Consolidation, and the “Greater Israel” Resource Strategy

The territorial dimensions of the conflict in Gaza and southern Lebanon acquire full meaning only when viewed through the prism of resource sovereignty. The Gaza Marine gas field, estimated to contain 1.6 trillion cubic feet of gas, and adjacent offshore oil deposits worth an estimated $71 billion, have remained undeveloped under decades of Israeli security restrictions (LinkedIn/Elsayed, 2025; Power News, 2025). In the postconflict landscape of 2026, these resources are being formally integrated into the Israeli state energy grid. The “forceful dislocation” of local populations, as documented by numerous human rights organisations, serves a dual purpose: the establishment of security buffer zones and the unhindered exploitation of offshore energy wealth (ECPS Commentary, March 2026).

Critics and scholars increasingly argue that this represents a deliberate project of regional hegemony. By controlling the coastlines and the energy chokepoints of the Levant—from the maritime borders of Gaza to the gas-rich waters off southern Lebanon Israel is positioning itself as the indispensable “energy hub” for the entire Mediterranean (ECPS, 2026). The “Greater Israel” projection, long discussed in some geopolitical circles, finds a concrete expression in the drive to convert military gains into permanent control over the Levantine Basin. The ECPS Commentary (March 2026) argues that the expansion is not merely reactive but constitutes a “strategic manoeuvring space” designed to consolidate an Atlantic-Levantine order in which Israel’s territorial and resource sovereignty becomes the foundation of the emerging energy axis.

This integration of Gaza Marine and the broader Levantine reserves into the Haifa hub strengthens the pipeline-to-power logic. The gas from these fields can be fed directly into the East-Med and Vertical Gas Corridor pipelines, supplementing the volumes arriving from the Gulf and further diversifying the supply portfolio under Western control. The combination of Israeli-controlled offshore wealth, Saudi and Emirati pipeline flows, and the existing Leviathan and Tamar fields creates a critical mass sufficient to turn Israel into a net energy exporter of geopolitical consequence—a transformation that Prime Minister Netanyahu has repeatedly called a “historic opportunity” (Jerusalem Post, 2026).

Phase Six: OPEC’s Institutional Crisis and the Currency  Dimension

The institutional architecture of the global oil market is concurrently undergoing transformation. The United Arab Emirates announced its withdrawal from OPEC and OPEC+ on 28 April 2026, explicitly citing dissatisfaction with production quotas that constrained its capacity expansion plans and a desire to align more closely with the emerging Atlantic-Levantine framework (FTV News, 2026). The UAE’s departure removes a producer with substantial spare capacity and low production costs, directly challenging Saudi Arabia’s market dominance (FTV News, 2026). SpecialEurasia (May 2026) interprets the UAE’s move as part of a definitive break from traditional Saudi and Iranian regional influence, in favour of a partnership with Israel and the United States that will route its energy through the Haifa corridor.

Simultaneously, Saudi Arabia has signalled a shift in strategy. In May 2025, Riyadh was reported to be urging OPEC+ to accelerate production increases, moving from a price-support posture to a market-share strategy (CLS, 2025). Saudi overproduction of approximately 385 million barrels above quota in June 2025 further signalled a breakdown in cartel discipline (AEGIS Hedging, 2025). Analysts at the Oil & Gas Journal (2025) observe that these dynamics, combined with the dominance of non-OPEC+ supply from the U.S., Brazil, and Canada, render the organisation’s future increasingly uncertain (OilPrice, 2025).

The crisis within OPEC intersects with broader questions of currency and trade architecture. While complete dedollarisation of oil trade is unlikely within five years, a gradual erosion of the dollar’s role in oil settlement is underway, accelerated by Chinese innovations in alternative payment systems such as the digital yuan and the mBridge platform (Asia Society, 2025). The dollar’s share of allocated reserves fell to 56.32% in Q2 2025, down from a peak of 73% in 2000 (Pecos Operating, 2025).

Counterintuitively, the expanding volume of U.S. LNG and crude exports—now overwhelmingly denominated in dollars reinforces the currency’s role in energy markets even as its petrodollar foundation erodes. The emergence of a de facto “LNG dollar” is not yet a formal policy, but the structural reality of U.S. supply dominance makes it a powerful financial byproduct of the grand strategy.

Phase Seven: The Trump Corollary and the Atlantic-Levantine Axis

The doctrinal frame that gives coherence to these phases is the “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, articulated in the 2026 update to the National Security Strategy and repeatedly invoked in Presidential addresses. The corollary states that the Western Hemisphere and its “strategic partners outside the hemisphere” Israel being the most explicit must remain free of hostile foreign ownership, and that energy infrastructure within this sphere constitutes a core national security interest (U.S. DOE, 2026). In practice, this translates into an architecture where the United States and its allies hold permanent control over the extraction, transit, and pricing of the world’s most critical hydrocarbon corridors.

The Atlantic-Levantine Energy Axis that emerges from this doctrine is a spatial and institutional reality. By welding the energy resources of the Americas (U.S. crude, LNG, and Venezuelan heavy crude under sanctions), the Levantine Basin (Israeli fields, Gaza Marine, and Lebanese offshore blocks under Israeli security control), and the Gulf (via pipelines through Jordan to Haifa), the strategy creates an integrated basin that can supply Europe and, increasingly, Asian markets on Western terms. The “unified plug” concept is central: America’s LNG terminals and Middle Eastern pipelines feed into the same European reception and distribution network, making the entire system manageable from Washington and Jerusalem. This fusion is precisely the Long-Term Strategy described in early 2026 strategic assessments a permanent energy weapon that can be turned on or off to discipline enemies and reward allies.

Australia, LNG Competition, and the Indo-Pacific Dimension

The transformation of global LNG markets has had pronounced effects in the Asia-Pacific. Australia, historically the second largest LNG exporter, saw export volumes in the first half of 2025 decline to their lowest level in four years (IEEFA, 2025). The United States has overtaken Australia and Qatar to become the world’s largest LNG exporter, accounting for 25.2% of global shipments in the first ten months of 2025, compared to Australia’s 18.6% (Hellenic Shipping News, 2025). By mid-2026, the gap has widened as U.S. projects ramped up to meet the Hormuz-induced supply gap. Projections indicate that Australian LNG export prices to Asia may decline by up to 42% by 2027 as U.S. and restructured Middle Eastern supply floods the market (AFN Daily, 2025).

Japan and South Korea, which have invested over $20 billion in Australian LNG infrastructure since 2008, are increasingly diversifying their supply sources, further eroding Australia’s market position (ASPI Strategist, 2025). The redistribution of LNG market share represents the commercial corollary of the strategic reorientation described throughout this essay: the displacement of established suppliers and the consolidation of U.S. and U.S.-aligned dominance across multiple basins. Australia’s relative decline is exacerbated by its distance from the new Haifa-centred distribution network, which is optimised for Atlantic and Mediterranean delivery, leaving East Asian buyers more dependent on the U.S. Gulf Coast and the redirected Gulf-to-Haifa pipeline flows.

Synthesis: A Grand Strategy of Energy Control?

The coherence of the pattern described above has prompted substantial scholarly reflection. Mohammed Soliman, in West Asia: A New American Grand Strategy in the Middle East (2025), argues that U.S. policy has shifted from regional stabilisation to “order-building” through infrastructure and energy architecture (MEI, 2025). The Baker Institute’s 2025 policy briefs emphasise the strategic role of Western Hemisphere hydrocarbons in diversifying supply chains (Monaldi, 2025). An analysis by Geostrategic Media (2025) notes that Trump’s grand strategy “centers on assuring security of energy supply for itself and strategic allies through competition, while favouring interdependence to guarantee cooperation” (Geostrategic Media, 2025). By May 2026, these concepts have crystallised into a recognisable architecture: the Atlantic-Levantine Axis, with Haifa as its central nervous system.

The academic literature on energy weaponisation provides the theoretical underpinning. Hameed (2025) demonstrates that “resource-rich countries often exhibit aggressive foreign policy stances and are central to regional or global conflicts,” while “energy-dependent nations engage in alliance-building and strategic diversification.” The weaponisation of interdependence through pipeline destruction, sanctions, chokepoint disruption, and now the construction of alternative corridors has been examined in analyses of both the EU-Russia dynamic (CEEOL, 2025) and the broader phenomenon of “energy as a tool of geopolitical coercion” (NU, 2025). The Haifa bypass adds a new dimension: the deliberate construction of a Western-controlled chokepoint alternative that does not merely disrupt adversaries but permanently alters the geography of global energy dependency.

Several caveats remain essential. First, the posited grand strategy is not monolithic; it reflects the confluence of multiple actors the Executive Branch, Congress, corporations, and allied governments whose interests are not perfectly aligned. Second, the unintended consequences of the Hormuz blockade, the Gaza war, and OPEC fragmentation may exceed any single actor’s capacity for control. The risk of a wider regional war, the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, and the potential for global recession are costs that no strategist can ignore. Third, the renewable energy transition introduces variables that the fossil fuel-centric analysis cannot fully capture. Prontera (2025), in Green Superpowers, argues that strategic supply considerations will persist even in a renewables-dominated world, but the geography of power will shift accordingly. Yet, for the medium term, the hydrocarbon infrastructure being cemented in 2026 will lock in dependencies for decades.

Conclusion

As the dust of the March 2026 Hormuz crisis begins to settle, the picture that emerges is one of an Atlantic-Levantine Energy Axis designed to weld the energy resources of the Americas, the Levant, and the Gulf into a single, U.S.-managed instrument of statecraft. The territorial expansion and “dislocation” witnessed in Gaza and southern Lebanon are not isolated military events; they are the ground-clearing phase for a new energy architecture that intends to dominate the global political stage for the next half-century. The Haifa-Europe pipeline corridor, the integration of Gazan and Lebanese offshore resources, the UAE’s defection from OPEC, and the doctrinal assertion of a Trump Corollary all point in the same direction: a permanent restructuring of global energy geography in which the United States and Israel occupy the position of indispensable gatekeepers.

The empirical record through May 2026 reveals a pattern that is highly functional for U.S. and Israeli energy dominance. Whether every element was preplanned in a seamless strategic blueprint is a question that will occupy historians for years. But the alignment of infrastructure decisions, military operations, and doctrinal pronouncements creates a systemic logic that is difficult to dismiss as coincidence. Energy has been definitively elevated from a commercial commodity to the primary weapon of geopolitical competition. The pipelines are being laid, the territories are being reshaped, and the map of the world is being redrawn accordingly.

In its deepest historical register, the grand strategy traced above confirms that, for imperial and colonial powers, force recognises no boundaries and observes no rights but those it imposes for its own advantage. The supposedly liberal democratic order constructed after the Second World War with its professions of sovereignty, selfdetermination, and the rule of law has functioned in practice as a fraudulent edifice, designed above all to empower Israel and the Zionist project and to serve as a vehicle for the same extractive and domineering impulses that drove the East India Company centuries ago. Just as that chartered corporation monopolised resources, subjugated entire populations, and enslaved weaker nations under the banner of commerce and civilisation, so today’s Atlantic-Levantine axis re-enshrines resource domination, employing debt, dependency, and military coercion to reduce the global periphery to a condition of permanent subordination. The weaponisation of energy described in these pages is not a deviation from the modern liberal order; it is the latest, most sophisticated expression of a centuries-old colonial continuum—an ideological lineage in which the strong take what they can, and the weak endure what they must, all under the ever-shifting pretence of progress, security, and freedom.

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Kamran Qureshi is a legal professional and academic based in the United Kingdom. He combines extensive training in law and political science with practical experience as an Advocate of the High Court in Pakistan. He holds an LL.M. from the University of Sheffield, as well as master’s and bachelor’s degrees in Political Science and Law from the University of Peshawar. Currently engaged in advanced research in England, his work focuses on the historical and interdisciplinary forces shaping modern political systems, aiming to contribute to academic discourse and deepen understanding of contemporary global politics.

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Featured image is from Food and Water Watch

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